I have never been contained except I made the prison.
The perfection of a thing consists in its essence; there are perfect criminals, as there are men of perfect probity.
The refined punishments of the spiritual mode are usually much more indecent and dangerous than a good smack.
Steal goods and you’ll go to prison, steal lands and you are a king.
We judge ourselves by what we feel capable of doing, while others judge us by what we have already done.
When I was in prison, I was wrapped up in all those deep books. That Tolstoy crap - people shouldn't read that stuff.
Nor stony tower, nor walls of beaten brass, Nor airless dungeon, nor strong links of iron, Can be retentive to the strength of spirit; But life, being weary of these worldly bars, Never lacks power to dismiss itself.
Here the great art lies, to discern in what the law is to be to restraint and punishment, and in what things persuasion only is to work.
Men are not prisoners of fate, but only prisoners of their own minds.
Reality becomes a prison to those who can’t get out of it.
A just chastisement may benefit a man, though it seldom does; but an unjust one changes all his blood to gall.
I asked a man in prison once how he happened to be there and he said he had stolen a pair of shoes. I told him if he had stolen a railroad he would be a United States Senator.
There are only two places in the world where time takes precedence over the job to be done. School and prison.
As we grow in wisdom, we pardon more freely.
I have been studying how I may compare This prison where I live unto the world; And, for because the world is populous, And here is not a creature but myself, I cannot do it. Yet I'll hammer it out.
The power of punishment is to silence, not to confute.
We have initiated programs for re-entry offenders, since some 500,000 to 600,000 offenders will come out of prison each year for the next three or four years. We want to have positive alternatives when they come back to the community.
Crimes lead one into another; they who are capable of being forgers are capable of being incendiaries.
Law is merely the expression of the will of the strongest for the time being, and therefore laws have no fixity, but shift from generation to generation.
You stuff somebody into the American dream, and it becomes a prison.
Why would anyone expect him to come out smarter? He went to prison for three years, not Princeton.
Fast closed with double grills And triple gates–the cell To wicked souls is hell; But to a mind that's innocent 'Tis only iron, wood and stone.
In my country we go to prison first and then become President.
I was put into jail as I was going to the shoemaker's to get a shoe which was mended. When I was let out the next morning, I proceeded to finish my errand, and, having put on my mended shoe, joined a huckleberry party, who were impatient to put themselves under my conduct; and in half an hour -- for the horse was soon tackled -- was in the midst of a huckleberry field, on one of our highest hills, two miles off, and then the State was nowhere to be seen.
America is the land of the second chance – and when the gates of the prison open, the path ahead should lead to a better life.
